Hugh Oram’s French Blogs

Murder and mayhem in Corsica Just a few hours ago I read in the online edition of Le Figaro, a leading Paris-based newspaper, of the assassination of a well-known business person in Ajaccio, Corsica. I always enjoy reading Le Figaro online, it’s very accessible and a quite comprehensive guide to the news of the day in France, which isn’t always pleasant reading. The assassination in Ajaccio took place in the mens’ outfitters shop owned by the victim, who was prominent in the local Chamber of Commerce and someone with good nationalist credentials, essential in Corsica. The dreadful news—the 17th assassination of the year in Corsica—brought back so many memories of the one and only time we went to Corsica—we’ve never been back. The shop where the murder took place is in the Rue Fesch, which is right in the centre of Ajaccio, whose main claim to rather dubious fame is that it was the birthplace of Napoléon Bonaparte. When we were in Corsica, we stayed in the Rue Fesch, which was like something out of an Italian opera set. It’s a narrow street, where the houses rise on both sides of the street to five or six stories. In the evenings, when all the windows are open and families are gathering, it’s a noisy bustling place of much conviviality. The street was much more like something you’d find in Naples than in France, and that goes for much of Corsica, which is really France’s Italianate protectorate in the Mediterranean. I always remember, in the Rue Fesch, going into a small draper’s shop to buy a scarf for my wife. The woman who ran the tiny shop was very elderly and wore the traditional Corsican style of dress, enveloped in black from head to toe. Yet she was very friendly, came from behind the counter and gave my wife a big hug. It was a touching moment, a friendly gesture of solidarity. Yet the memory that sticks longest about Corsica was the most chilling and even to this day, when I think of it, the episode sends shivers coursing up and down my spine. One summer’s afternoon, typically very sunny and very hot, we decided to go the other side of the bay from Ajaccio to a luxury hotel so that we could have a few drinks and chill out poolside. We got there easily enough on the bus—like most places in France, public transport, by bus or train, is quite good, efficient and affordable. French public transport isn’t run down, an afterthought, the way it is in other countries, like the UK. We strolled down the driveway to the hotel and had just got into the lobby when we saw something odd going on. A group of men, carrying guns, and rather large guns at that, were running out of the lobby. For a split second, I t seemed like some kind of pantomime charade and then we realised that we had run into the middle of an armed robbery, a very frequent occurence in Corsica. We were standing there looking like a couple of eejity tourists and dressed accordingly and I had my camera slung around my neck. The robbers had to run right past us to get out of the revolving doors. The thought immediately occurred to me that just a couple of days previously, on the French mainland in the south of France, something very similar had happened and that the robbers had casually killed several people as they made their exit. The hotel staff were frozen in shock, but eventually, they told us, long before the gendarmes arrived, that this gang had burst into the hotel, demanded to be taken to the safe in the manager’s office and then cleaned out the contents. As it happened, most of the contents were made up of credit card paperwork from guests who had paid by card. The safe actually had very little hard cash, which must have made the robbers very frustrated and doubly dangerous. That evening, there was a brief mention of the incident on the local television news and that was that; this type of robbery is so commonplace in Corsica that they come with the scenery. The hotel staff offered us drinks as we sat by the pool, looking out on an incredible view across the bay to Ajaccio. It must have been a touch of the stiff upper lip syndrome, or something, but while my wife opted for something suitably alcoholic, I stuck to mineral water! It was only later that evening, when we had got back to our hotel in Ajaccio that the real horror of that afternoon’s events sunk in along with the realisation of what might have been. That whole episode also points up another truth: so much of what you read about fabulous French holiday destinations is pure pr guff. They’ll tell you about the absolutely incredible beaches in Corsica and the equally incredible inland scenery, with all its mountains and maquis, and you’ll be told about these storied medieval towns like Bonifacio in the south of Corsica, and it’s all quite true, but will you find a word about the true situation in Corsica? Of course not. In the official France, Corsica is just another department and it’s often a case of “try to forget about the problem for long enough and it will go away”. Corsica has had a very convoluted history and strong nationalism and an equally rampant banditry play a large part in its affairs. It’s an incredibly beautiful island and hospitality is usually warm and heartfelt. But Corsica comes with a health warning and that’s something you won’t find out about in all the reams of pr. I usually ignore all the pr stuff I read about France and much prefer to find out the real situation, on the ground, for myself, meeting the people of whatever locality I’m in, much more fun and much more rewarding. Having said all that about Corsica, another much more pleasant memory still sticks in our memory. One afternoon, we had taken the famous narrow gauge train that runs across the central and northern part of Corsica, only to find that night that for some mysterious reason, the train that was scheduled to make the return trip to Ajaccio never turned up. Ten o’clock that night in a small mountainous village in the centre of Corsica—how in the name of bejasus were we going to get back to Ajaccio? We went into the one and only bar and explained our predicament. The local taxi driver was sitting there having a drink and he said, no problem, I’ll take you back to Ajaccio. That late night drive at high speed zipping along mountain roads was really something but what made it really special was the music that the taxi driver put on at high volume—the songs of Jacques Brel. Utter bliss, utter magic—that’s what a true French holiday is all about!